The Relation between Chinese Preschoolers’ Social-Emotional Competence and Preacademic Skills

Research Findings: The current study examines the relations between Chinese preschoolers’ social-emotional competence and their preacademic skills, as well as the role of child gender and parental education in such relations. A total of 154 children from the northeastern region of China were involved in the study. Both parents and head teachers of the target children completed measures of children’s social-emotional competence and preacademic skills. Multiple aspects of social-emotional competence were investigated. The results showed that children’s withdrawn behaviors and attention problems were negatively related to their preacademic skills. Both parent- and teacher-reported positive social behaviors were positively related to children’s preacademic skills. In addition, child gender and parental education together moderated the effects of children’s anxious/depressed problems and parent-reported social behaviors on children’s preacademic skills. Practice or Policy: Teacher training and support are needed to help preschool teachers (a) better support children who are socially withdrawn or have difficulty regulating attention and (b) understand the construct and importance of social-emotional development in relation to children’s preacademic development . In addition, child characteristics such as age and gender and socioeconomic factors need to be taken into consideration in the study of young children’s social-emotional and cognitive competence.     

Oddity learning in the pigeon: Effect of negative instances,correction, and number of incorrect alternatives

Pigeons have difficulty learning a standard oddity task involving two colors and three stimulus positions. In Experiment 1, performance on standard noncorrection trials was compared with performance on (1) rerun correction trials in which errors resulted in trial repetition, (2) noncorrection trials with added “negative instance” trials involving presentation of three stimuli, all of which matched, and (3) a combination of correction and added negative instance trials. Results indicated that negative instances, but not correction trials, significantly facilitated oddity performance. In Experiment 2, Phase 1, number of stimulus positions lit (three or five) was factorially manipulated with number of positions on which the odd stimulus could appear (three or five). An increase in number of positions lit, but not number of positions that could be odd, facilitated performance. In Phase 2, birds transferred from trials with five positions lit to four positions lit performed significantly better than controls; but in Phase 3, the same birds did not perform significantly better than controls when transferred to trials with three positions lit. In both experiments, analysis of performance as a function of response position indicated better performance at the end of each display than in the middle. These results, together with the group performance differences in Experiment 2, suggest that oddity learning in pigeons involves a size, or number, discrimination.     

A practical approach to student-centred learning

Coauthor Edwards has developed and delivered an undergraduate first year course in which students were encouraged to take more responsibility for their own learning. The techniques used included giving students responsibility for:

• 1

  setting their own objectives, and working at their own pace
• 2

  making self-assessments of their own work, and the marks to be awarded for it
• 3

  arranging their own visits, individually or in small groups, to public or private organisations
• 4

  liaising with external lecturers, and agreeing the content of their lectures with them
• 5

  keeping their own diaries of work plans and achievements
• 6

  arranging and moderating their own computer-based electronic conference.

Coauthor Sutton was invited to be an external observer of the operation of the course. He met the students in large and small groups on several occasions; observed the processes involved in self-assessment; and used two questionnaires to help elicit the students' feelings about the course. This article discusses the course, its content, the learning methods used, the students' reactions, and the results obtained.     

Parents’ Perceptions of Preschool Activities: Exploring Outdoor Play

Research Findings: Outdoor play is important for children’s health and development, yet many preschool-age children in child care settings do not receive the recommended 60 min/day of outdoor play. Child care providers have previously described parent-related barriers to increasing outdoor playtime, including parents not providing appropriate clothing for their children and parents’ preference for academics over active play. This study explored parent perceptions and knowledge of outdoor playtime in child care environments. On average, parents reported wanting their child to spend significantly more time playing outside during a full day of child care than the recommended minimum. However, more than half of parents reported that they did not know how much time their child actually spent playing outside, and 43% reported that they did not know their child care center’s outdoor play policies. Practice or Policy: Child care providers may overperceive parent-related barriers to outdoor play. Parents generally support outdoor play for their preschooler during center-based child care but are not well informed about outdoor playtime and policies. Encouraging communication between parents and early childhood educators about these topics could lead to more universal support and strategies for promoting outdoor and active play opportunities for children, which are important for children’s health and development.     

Effects of stimulus dimension and of trial and intertrial illumination on acquisition of a match/mismatch task by pigeons

Birds were trained on a higher order conditional discrimination task, one that required birds to match samples and comparisons on some trials and to mismatch on other trials. Which task component was in effect was indicated by the level of chamber illumination (houselight-on and houselight-off instructions). Acquisition of the components of a color (red and green) match/mismatch task in the first half of the experiment was not differentially affected by the level of illumination associated with each task component, by houselight changes per se, or by the level of illumination during the intertriai interval (ITI). However, when shapes (plus and circle) were used to train the task in the second half of the experiment, performance on the houselight-cued task component exceeded performance on the dark-cued task component, and ITI illumination facilitated performance on both task components. These results suggest that attention to shape stimuli, but not to colors, may vary systematically as a function of chamber illumination level.     

The Williams committee of inquiry into education and training in Australia: Recommendations for universities

The Williams Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training presented its three-volume report to the Federal Government in February 1979 after nearly two and a half years of collecting and collating data and opinions, interviewing, discussing and trying to reach agreement on its final responses to a wide and complex brief that covered the organization, duality and practical efficiency of Australia's educational and training systems up to the year 2000.The central part of this paper is divided into four main sections. The first three sections come under the headings of Efficiency, Accountability and Flexibility. These headings represent an attempt to identify the main elements in a guiding theme that runs through the Committee's brief.Efficiency and Accountability relate to the tightening up of the system and they act as major elements in the Committee's discussion of the relationship between the Federal and State authorities: the interaction between the three parts of the post-secondary sector: the organization and operation of the institutions, and the performance of staff and students. The Committee thus progressively narrowed the field of view from a systemswide one to a focus on file individual institutions and prefaced its recommendations with calculations on the future costs of post-secondary education and discussion of the demographic projections for future enrolments. The Committee's findings and recommendations present a case for improved information, co-ordination and rationalization at all levels and provide checklists which might guide the authorities and the institutions in the re-assessment of their roles and functions.Under the third subject heading Flexibility - we discuss the range of options from which the institutions were encouraged to choose in their attempt to achieve efficiency and accountability. In other words, the options or paths suggested all lead in the same direction - towards economic survival - but some room is made along the way for increased educational opportunity. The Committee allows for reshuffling within the system, but not explicitly for the creation of a new system.The fourth section in this paper deals specifically with the likely fates of the universities, especially the small universities. The potential cumulative effect of the recommendations here is the possible evolution of two models of universities: firstly, universities operating on a traditional basis but augmented by special research centres, and secondly. universities operating in close relationship with the other parts of the post-secondary sectors and offering, for example, some sub-degree courses. The latter class would not he excluded from the research role and the pursuit of excellence but the advantage for the attraction of both funds and students would prohahly lie with the research institutions. The positive aspect in the Report's finding is. perhaps, its spur to the ingenuity and tenacity of the younger universities especially to employ fully the tactics of flexibility.We conclude with a summary appraisal of the nature of hoth the Committee's task and its findings. The main lines of argument pursued in the paper are then brought together to give an appreciation of the likely impart which the Report of the Committee of inquiry into Education and Training will have on Australian university education in particular in the next two decades.     

膝骨关节炎患者全血白细胞线粒体DNA复制数量和血浆炎性细胞因子的相关性研究（英文）

目的:本实验研究全血白细胞线粒体DNA复制数量(mtDNACN)和血浆炎性细胞因子在膝骨关节炎患者中的变化和其相关性。创新点:探讨了老年(50~80岁)膝骨关节炎患者白细胞mtDNACN和血浆炎性细胞因子水平及二者的关系。方法:分别收集膝骨关节炎组和对照组血液样本并对膝关节评分(Kellgren-Lawren grading)。使用实时定量聚合酶链反应(qRT-PCR)检测相对mtDNACN;使用多重免疫分析(multiplex immunoassay)测定血浆中10种炎性细胞因子水平;应用线性相关、Logistic回归和主成分分析(PCA)揭示骨关节炎白细胞mtDNACN和血浆炎性细胞因子的相关性。结论:血浆中白介素4(IL-4)、IL-6和全血白细胞mtDNACN可能是膝骨关节炎有效的生物标志物;IL-5则对mtDNACN减少具有潜在的影响。     

The sociology of policy change within international organisations: beyond coercive and normative perspectives – towards circuits of power

ABSTRACT

For international organisations in the global education policy field, legitimacy is based in large part on the supposed techno-rational basis of these organisations and their ability to credibly produce knowledge and policy expertise. However, as the present article demonstrates, there are clearly a range of macro–micro organisational dynamics driving the production of knowledge and the policy ideas that are advanced. By revealing the way that a particular policy emerged and was promoted within the World Bank, this article seeks to expose the way that policy innovation is produced by the iterative interplay of agentic activity and particular organisational circumstances – and how this process is used to maintain and extend the influence of international organisations and the individuals who represent them. By drawing on Stewart Clegg’s ‘circuits of power’ approach, we seek to theorise the internal dynamics of international organisations, and, in so doing, to move beyond the dominant coercive and normative perspectives.     

Development of a scale of cognitive demand for analysis of printed secondary science materials

Conclusion The Scale of Cognitive Demand, although of potentially daunting size, proved to be usable by teachers and useful to them. Validation of the Scale confirmed that the cognitive demand construct was meaningful and appropriate for distinguishing between the types of tasks encountered in printed Secondary Science materials. In the light of the data obtained from the trials by teachers, and the validation and reliability procedures, a modified form of the instrument has been prepared. Further research will be undertaken to establish the extent to which the modifications represent real improvements.     

Analyzing change in school psychology research

We look at three common research scenarios, one in the behavioral domain (i.e., disruptive behaviors) one in the cognitive domain (i.e., academic achievement), and one in the affective domain (i.e., anxiety and stress) for which school psychologists are asked to address important questions related to change. We list measurement and statistical considerations across these scenarios, including whether variables are manifest or latent, the scales of measurement, the dimensionality of measures, the units of analysis, the sample size, and the frequency or duration of time, given the primary nature of the variables under study. We suggest that researchers carefully consider whether assumptions can be met employing classical general linear models, or whether contemporary alternatives, such as hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), should be recommended for the more appropriate handling of data. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 535–542, 2007.